Light<\/a>, the maker of the minimalist phone with an e-paper screen, is announcing its newest model, the Light Phone III. <\/p>\nLike its earlier counterpart, the Light Phone III offers a simple black-and-white display, without access to social media, the internet or email. But unlike Light\u2019s older phones, the Light III sports a larger OLED display and an NFC chip to make way for future payment tools, as well as a camera for snapping moments you wouldn\u2019t want to miss by leaving your smartphone at home.<\/p>\n
The goal with the new device is to improve its usability and performance, says Light co-founder Joe Hollier. The new Light III is larger than prior models, approximately the width of most iPhones, but significantly shorter; it\u2019s more like the BlackBerry in terms of its form factor. That will make texting on the phone while holding it vertically easier, the team says. In addition, the AMOLED screen only lights up the white pixels which, combined with a matte glass, will feel more like the older Light Phone II.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt actually will keep a lot of the characteristics that people love about the e-ink screen, [with it] feeling much different than a glossy smartphone screen,\u201d Hollier said.<\/p>\nImage Credits:<\/strong> Light<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nAlong with Kaiwei Tang, Hollier founded Light in September 2014, initially as a Kickstarter project for people looking to break their smartphone addictions. Between the first two models, the Light Phone I and Light Phone II, the company has shipped over 100,000 devices, with the latter accounting for roughly two-thirds of those sales.<\/p>\n
The Light Phone\u2019s appeal is that it doesn\u2019t force you to give up useful aspects of modern-day smartphone technology, like built-in access to maps and navigation, calls, texting, notes and voice notes, a calendar, timer, alarm, calculator, a hotspot, and a simple music player and podcasts tool. Instead, what it offers is a way to escape the sorts of technology some would rather do without: social media apps, clickbait news, and the call of a web browser connecting you to the internet.<\/p>\nImage Credits:<\/strong> Light<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nLight phone owners can use the unlocked device on their own carrier, or they can opt for Light\u2019s $30 per month phone plan with 1GB of data. There are also higher-priced plans at $45\/month or $70\/month for 5GB or unlimited data, respectively.<\/p>\n
The phone has niche appeal among an audience of 25- to 40-year-olds, the majority of whom use it as their primary phone, often alongside a tablet or laptop computer for their expanded internet access. A smaller group may switch to their Light phone when they need to take a break, like when trying to go \u201coffline\u201d for a weekend or holiday but don\u2019t want to be without a way to reach people or be reached in case of an emergency.<\/p>\n
The Light Phone III will target the larger demographic that are already using the non-smartphone as their main device.<\/p>\nImage Credits:<\/strong> Light<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nLike its other devices, the Light phone will also appeal to the privacy-minded crowd. When you use a feature like directions and navigation, Light pays to get that logic privately for its users. That means tech giants like Google aren\u2019t tracking and sharing your data when you use these sorts of features.<\/p>\n
Besides the new form factor and OLED screen, the camera is the most notable addition. It\u2019s not on par with those found in high-end smartphones like the iPhone or Google Pixel; instead, it is a center-focus camera without zoom that feels more like a point-and-shoot. Pressing the dedicated shutter button a half press focuses the photo and a full press takes the picture.<\/p>\n
Another new feature is the light wheel, which lets you adjust the brightness of the screen by turning a knob when you\u2019re going outside or inside, making it brighter or dimmer. <\/p>\nThe larger phone now sports more antenna bands so there\u2019s only one phone model this time, not separate ones for North America and Europe. Around the side of the phone\u2019s casing is aluminum, with recycled plastic making up the speaker grille at the bottom. The Light Phone III has larger loudspeakers for listening to music or podcasts or using the speakerphone. <\/p>\n
The power button now includes a fingerprint ID, making it simpler to open the phone and use it. The 5G-enabled phone also features 6GB of RAM (up from 1GB in the Light Phone II), 128GB of memory (up from 8GB) and more-modern Qualcomm chips.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the battery, about double the size of prior versions, is user-replaceable or users can ship their phone back to Light to have it replaced for them, likely for under $50. <\/p>\nImage Credits:<\/strong> Light<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nAll the upgrades make the new device more expensive: The Light Phone III is $799 compared with the $299 Light Phone II. The latter will still be sold, though, for those who prefer the e-ink version.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe pose the question: Can a phone last five years or even 10 years? Things like the metal, more quality materials, the removable battery, and we\u2019ve even improved how screens could be replaced \u2014 and other components \u2014 as much as possible,\u201d Hollier said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to make it a more sustainable phone. And to that point, you know, the $799 price point really does embody that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier adopters of the Light Phone III will be able to preorder the new devices for $399 \u2014 a 50% discount. Similar to crowdfunding, these preorders will help Light move toward its first mass production run with Foxconn. There will be a total of three production runs until around late November, and orders are expected to begin shipping in January 2025.<\/p>\n
From 2015 through 2024, Light has raised around $11 million from over 80 VCs and angels, including Bullish VC, Twitter Cofounder Biz Stone, Lyft Cofounder John Zimmer, Tim Kendall (Facebook\/Pinterest), Scott Belsky (Adobe), Wisdom Venture, Dave Free (Pglang), Pete Davidson (SNL), Able Partners, Gaingels, Heroic Ventures, Hinge Capital, White Bay Group, New Lab Ventures, SOSV, as well as Foxconn. As of 2022 \u2014 the last valuation used to raise equity \u2014 Light was valued at $24 million, pre-money.<\/p>\n
The Light Phone III\u2019s full specs:<\/strong><\/p>\nDimensions: 106mm x 71.5mm x 12mm
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Apple prepares to introduce its AI-powered features for the iPhone, another company is taking the opposite approach: Instead of building a phone with more technology, it\u2019s opting for less. Light, the maker of the minimalist phone with an e-paper screen, is announcing its newest model, the Light Phone III. Like its earlier counterpart, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":103890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-103889","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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